Art Creates Cultural Bridge From Here To Ethiopia

NORFOLK — The film opens with shots of artwork, created by students on opposite sides of the globe. There are those who look familiar — Chris Hanley’s art students at the Lee Kellogg School in Falls Village and other Region One schools, with drawings of football players and kitty cats.

Then there are some that are not quite so familiar. The drawings depict cows and exotic trees and, in some cases, bombs dropping from the sky. These are the children of Mekele, Ethiopia, whose school was bombed in 1999 in a war with neighboring Eritrea.

Hanley has worked with hundreds of seventh-graders from Kent to Canaan over the past year, striving to create a bond with the children from half a world away. She has collected artwork from area youngsters, has created an informational video about her experiences and, on Jan. 13, she will share those experiences with visitors at the Norfolk Library.

"I went throughout the region getting kids to create triptychs on the subject of ‘Welcome To My Life,’" she said. The triptych, a three-paneled collage of drawings, has great significance in Ethiopia, where Hanley traveled last year with fellow teacher Anna Dolan.

"It’s a religious format," she said of the triptych. "In the Coptic Christian churches of Ethiopia it symbolizes the Holy Trinity: two doors open to reveal an interior."

She said the idea to have the youngsters make triptychs was Dolan’s idea. The Central Connecticut State University art professor from Massachusetts had previously traveled to Ethiopia several times, through CCSU and Project Troubadour in Salisbury.

"Anna also worked in southern Ethiopia on her own," Hanley said. "She took theater students at CCSU to do street theater, and traveled to Mekele to spread AIDS awareness."

The pair have known each other for some time; they both have children in Chorus Angelicus, and Hanley was intrigued by Dolan’s experiences in Africa.

"I wanted to come up with some way to include the kids over here," she said.

So she started going around to the seven Region One schools, soliciting artwork and teaching the children about life in Ethiopia. When the time came, she and Dolan traveled to Mekele, their suitcases full of art supplies and "Welcome To My Life" triptychs created by Litchfield County middle school students.

Hanley said the idea was to "create a cultural bridge-building opportunity through art."

Upon their arrival in Ethiopia, she and Dolan stayed in the village of Mekele, in a tiny room, sharing everything with five families who played host to the Americans.

"They call it a house, but it’s basically an eight-by-eight foot room. We all share a courtyard, which is where you do your cooking, laundry…it’s not like we were on a vacation. We shared a hole in the ground with the same five families."

The hardships the people of Mekele live with on a daily basis really put everything in perspective, Hanley said. "It was an epiphany. It changes the way you think about everything. It’s really humbling."

But a chance meeting made the teachers’ visit even more life altering: When an Ethiopian teacher introduced the women to a friend by the name of Negisti, another world was opened up to them. Negisti, a teacher of English at a school for the blind in Mekele, had a profound impact on Hanley and Dolan.

Hanley, who speaks with passion about the dangerous conditions at the school for the blind, said she and Dolan made it their mission to improve the lives of its students. Through their efforts, a courtyard was cleaned of hazardous debris, and the women embarked on an ongoing fundraising effort to help the sightless students of Mekele.

"We’re working on a stone wall around the dorms," Hanley said. The wall, a 50-square-meter fence around the students’ sleeping quarters, is necessary to ward off thieves and sexual predators, she said.

In addition, orders are being taken for vitamins, Braille materials, walking sticks, soccer balls with bells inside (so the kids can hear where the balls go) and the like, to be sent to the school. Anyone interested can go to mekeleblindschool.org for information. To make a donation, contact Chris Hanley at 860-542-5851 or go to futureaids.com or independentliving.com.

Now Hanley is visiting Lions Clubs around Connecticut, speaking and presenting on the Mekele Blind School. Having just finished a presentation to the Norfolk Lions, she said she hopes to be invited before the Winsted and Torrington clubs. She will return to Mekele in June, bringing supplies and goodwill.

"You always hear about the 5 million kids that died, but you never hear about the millions and millions who don’t die, but whose brains don’t work because of malnutrition," Hanley said.